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I want to ask you about language. You use a lot of Cree words, and there is no translation and no glossary. You also have some Lakota—

—yes there’s a bit of Anishinaabe as well.

You have said the reader must meet you part way and do some work.

The role of translation, specifically for Indigenous languages, does a disservice. In Cree, to translate “tânsi” to “hello” … well, it does mean that, but it’s also asking how you are and how you have been and sometimes where you’re from. Those things get lost if we offer a direct translation. Depending on the conjunctions or inflections, the meaning of the word changes.

For me, Cree words are compounds and webs of meaning that can’t be simply translated into one word. Jonny and Tias have a word game they play where they combine Cree and Anishinaabemowin. They make a word that means “forever goodbye,” which we don’t have in Cree. They phonetically play with “ekosi,” an Anishinaabe word that means goodbye, but also, “that is all” which is more attuned with finality than the Cree, kîhtwam, or “see you again, see you soon.” That, when they playfully say ekosi, they mimic it phonetically to cancel out finality and instead say, “You don’t say” and laugh. They play with language, through having a basis in both languages. They’re always teetering on this idea that they’ll never leave each other but will politely say they are. In the end, Jonny plays on their shared language to give Tias finality. If I had tried to explain or translate that notion, the meaning would be lost, but the readers who understand what the two of them say to each other really understand the full impact of the emotion and the parting.

My decision not to translate also asks readers to put in some work and meet Indigenous lit-erature part way, as I’m consistently meeting canonical literature part way.

I want to talk about humour and love which I think work in similar ways in your book. You have laughter as a fresh layer of medicine to an open wound. You have Jonny realize that “I’m in love with you sounds like I’m in pain with you.” Both love and humour work as a salve to wounds. I’ve been thinking about humour in some other Indigenous writers, like Eden Robinson who has the best laugh in the world. Often in your work, lines or passages are funny but sad at the same time, or funny but cutting. For example, I think of the collect call between Jonny and his mother when they don’t accept the charges, but they keep calling back and talking over the operator until they get cut off—and communicate with each other in bits that way. The scene—their approach—is kind of funny, but it’s also sad and also a metaphor because they’re so restricted and limited in how they can communicate, and they’re trying to have this important but pieced together conversation within a system unavailable to them.

How much do you think about that kind of layering and messaging when you use humour? Do you think about whether the humour is political or cathartic or a medicine? How much do those extra layers naturally arise out of your storytelling rather being something you consciously work at?

I don’t think I would be here today if I didn’t have humour. The world would have crushed me a long time ago. Humour becomes a force-field that deflects a lot of bad things.

At the end, Jonny is at his grandmother’s funeral, and they’re all telling stories of mourning about the matriarch who has passed, and they’re sharing the most ridiculous stories. Jonny’s grandmother makes fun of Jonny’s father for asking if they can have sex while pregnant and she says: “You’re not Long John Silver.”

That approach to humour is a very real mechanism that my community and family uses. Jonny deploys humour in a way that protects him.

I also want to ask you about similes. I think you use more similes than any writer I’ve ever read. My favourite one is “We laid our legs over each other like a wishbone.” Beautiful. On occasion, you also have a kind of piling up of similes. I wonder if you would talk about why you like similes so much and how you use them.

There’s a power difference between metaphor and simile. I was taught in creative writing class that similes are cheaper, that “like” or “as” cheapen an image. Growing up as a millennial person and a small-town prairie boy on the rez, “like” is our favourite word.

Intonation can change the whole meaning. It can be cutting. It can be observational. That number of similes doesn’t work as well for nonfiction or memory excavation work. But I was drawn to similes for this book because they sound how Jonny would talk. If he sat at a table and told you a story, it would be peppered with “likes.” If he started deploying metaphors, it would be untruthful to his character. I didn’t want him sounding too academic or sagely. The use of simile was a way to maintain the truthfulness of his vernacular—and “like” captured the orality that I wanted in this novel.

You’re always just looking at phantoms. Jonny can only conjure so much of reality.